Deep Thoughts: My Love Affair With Free City WiFi

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There’s no quicker way for a city to warm my heart than by offering up free WiFi. It’s rare, I know. In fact, off the top of my head, I can only think of a few cities—Temecula, California; Paris, France; and Novi Sad, Serbia—that I’ve traveled to that offer free, easily accessible WiFi for locals and tourists alike.

Now, I get logistically that it’s not easy—financially or technically—to wire a whole city. However, that doesn’t mean that a smaller popular section of the city can’t be outfitted with free WiFi. Seriously, as a traveler what is better than sitting on a park bench in a town square where you can make phone calls from computer or an iPhone using a reliable WiFi connection and a service like Rebtel.

I’m sure there a lot of travelers who don’t feel the same way. In fact, they may think having a free WiFi spot with people on their laptops and iDevices actually sucks the soul from a place by isolating people from their surroundings. But I think it’s important to remember that while these places are travel destinations for us, they are home for so many others. So, by having free city WiFi zone, it’s encouraging residents and tourists to escape the air-conditioned nightmare that is their offices, houses, hotel rooms or libraries, and take to the fresh air plazas, squares and parks, even if it is only to use international texting to stay in touch with your family while your abroad.

Now, the only thing that I like more than free WiFi is being able to stick it to big telecommunication companies (I’m looking at you AT&T and Verizon), who think the international data plans they offer are reasonable. As more and more cities set up free WiFi, then it will afford travelers and locals another, cheaper option when it comes to make international calls.

What do you think? Is free city WiFi a good or bad thing?

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